Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
Everyone still won't have ID. You're assuming because it's free everyone will get it. Remove the price. Put it in their hands. People lose things and are too lazy to get one. There will inevitably be identification requirements to receive one. You're idea changes little.
And yes, that is the choice no matter how you want to frame it. Any action to filter who votes will have unintended consequences. You cannot eliminate voter fraud. The choice is always: which measures make the biggest positive impact on voter fraud vs Neenah impact on disenfranchising voters? It's a spectrum not a zero sum game
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Yes, it's true that not everyone will have an ID, even if they are free, but most of the currently disenfranchised group of people will have one in that case, and cost and effort will no longer be an excuse for not having one. Today, those are valid reasons, which is why hundreds of thousands are not able to vote due to voter id restrictions. Reasonably, difficulty in getting to the polling stations (a real problem in some places in America) will become a bigger problem than not having an id if such a program was implemented. I don't have a problem with putting a tiny bit of responsibility on people, even if they are poor. Further, while people of all classes lose ids all the time, I doubt this will disproportionately affect the poorest as these cards would be used all the time for access to government services, bank accounts, etc (which would in turn, make it much easier for them to get another ID if they lose it).
It changes the argument from hundreds of thousands of people not being able to vote to hundreds of people who lost their ID within a couple weeks of the election not being able to vote (and procedures could be created to accommodate those with a temporary id if there is a wait time for a new one)
And yes, I agree it's a spectrum. However since it's a spectrum, it's by definition not a dichotomy (since neither of the 2 extremes must be held to), but a trade-off. Moreover, it's closer to a trichotomy than a dichotomy. You can give everyone Id's, eliminate voter fraud, and disenfranchise a few people who lose their id's, or eliminate voter fraud and disenfranchise a great many who can't afford Id's (due to cost or effort), or allow potential voter fraud and disenfranchise almost no-one in terms of voting access. Of course, you can provide Id's and eliminate voter id requirements, but that's irrelevant since the same end is achieved without Id's in that case.
Of these, I would start by providing free Id's since a great many people are disenfranchised even if they can vote since lack of government photo Id makes access to things like government programs and bank accounts much more difficult. Further, it would eliminate the political purpose of reducing the other parties voter base behind these requirements resulting in their inevitable removal over the long term if they are as worthless as people say.
I haven't done the math, but if providing photo id's allows 1-2% of this group to become productive, tax paying members of society, I'd guess that the program will pay for itself. But then, I don't buy the idea that most poor people are lazy or incapable of acting on the options they recognize as available for them in order to improve their lives.